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No matter what happens on Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Gennadiy Golovkin will be a Hall of Famer on the first ballot when he hangs up the gloves.
The numbers confirm it, whether it’s his record of 42-1-1 with 37 knockouts, or his status as middleweight champion from 2010 to 2018 and again from 2019 to the present with 22 title defenses in total.
He also fought and beat the best competition available for all 12 years, becoming a fan favorite for his no-nonsense style in and out of the ring.
At this point, “GGG” does not need a third fight with Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez. Yes, there is unfinished business between the two after a 2017 draw that many believe Golovkin won and a 2018 majority decision made by the Mexican star, again sparking controversy among fight fans. And how could we forget the money that went into fighting boxing’s biggest pay-per-view draw on Mexican Independence Day weekend?
But Golovkin appears to have done the right thing with his money, and even without Alvarez, there are titles to defend and paydays to be had in the middleweight division. So why would the 40-year-old enter the ring at super middleweight against a fighter eight years his junior with whom he has gone do-or-die twice in his natural weight class?
Maybe it’s all due to something that has been on his mind since he fought, a little mistake in his brain that says that nothing matters more than the sport, the fight and what the fans deserve.
In 2013, when he was in his prime and in the midst of what would ultimately be a 23-fight knockout streak made even more impressive by the fact that 18 of those finishes came in world title fights, the fight that everyone wanted to see. It was between Golovkin and Sergio Martínez. GGG wanted to see him too and his reasoning was simple.
“Do you remember the story, the fight with Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard?” he asked me. “The fight with Sugar Ray Leonard and (Roberto) Duran? They were just great fights to see who is the best. This was great for sport, great for boxing. This fight is to see who is number one, who is the best in the world. This is not for number three, number five, number seven. The fight with Sergio Martinez is to see who is the best in the world at middleweight, and it’s a great fight.”
There would be no fight with Martinez, and while the next few years would see him beat the likes of Daniel Geale, Martin Murray, Willie Monroe Jr., David Lemieux and Kell Brook, it wasn’t until he fought Daniel Jacobs at Madison Square Garden in March of 2017 that we could see it tested against a peer at the top of the sport.
Golovkin won that fight against Jacobs, and the next one was even bigger when he faced Alvarez for the first time. Take away an odd score of 118-110 for Alvarez, and the remaining scores of 114-114 and 115-113 for Golovkin were more in line with the reality of the 12-round fight.
A year later, they did it again, and while some saw Golovkin as the winner, most supported Álvarez as a fair verdict.
Embittered by the loss, Golovkin faced an uncertain future, not because of marketability or viability as a top-tier fighter, but because of motivation. At first, Álvarez didn’t seem too interested in a third fight, something that may have been motivated by bad blood between the two, and he pressed on, going 7-1 since the rematch, losing only in his most recent fight against the light. heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol in May.
Golovkin made the walk four times in the four years since their second battle, with clear knockouts of Steve Rolls and Kamil Szeremeta surrounded by a war with Sergiy Derevyanchenko in 2019 that many believed the Ukrainian won, and a systematic nine-round knockdown of Ryouta Murata. in April to prepare for this weekend’s fight.
And it’s at Saitama Super Arena that Golovkin’s car lost some passengers, which was puzzling, because A) Murata is a good, durable fighter who can be with the best at 160, and B) one day after his 40th birthday, Golovkin isn’t going to cut through everyone like he used to, and as such, he’s going to have to be smarter and more durable than his opponents to get them where he wants, and that was precisely the case earlier this year as he endured a strong effort of his Japanese enemy and finally tore him apart on the way to victory.
But Ryota Murata is not Canelo Alvarez. So while Golovkin is making the walk for the 45th time as a pro, he may be the first loser in his storied career. He will also fight in front of what will likely be a pro-Canelo crowd against an opponent who may have found him out, given the outcome of his last fight.
Those are the facts.
What is open to debate is whether this is the night a 40-year-old boxer turns 60 in the boxing years, or whether eight pounds feels like 80 when facing someone whose last middleweight fight was in 2019. Those debates ending up on the wrong side for the Kazakhstan native is what’s keeping Golovkin fans awake ahead of Saturday’s fight, but I get the impression it doesn’t bother the middleweight champion in the slightest.
He has kept a low profile, focused on business, as always, and when his name is called, he responds. It’s a spartan approach to sport, and life, that has worked for him since he first put on the gloves as a kid.
“I think the secret is in your faith in what you do,” Golovkin told me before the Szeremeta fight. “And speaking of discipline, I think discipline is critical to achieving what you’re trying to achieve.”
What he’s trying to accomplish probably has nothing to do with world titles or money, though they’re all important. I have a feeling this was the only fight for Gennadiy Golovkin: the longtime favorite, now an underdog, fighting the only man to beat him for the other’s championship, just as Jerry Izenberg wrote after the third Muhammad Ali -Joe Frazier. struggle:
“Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier did not fight for the WBC heavyweight title here in Manila last night. They also did not fight for the planet championship. They fought as if they were standing on a melting ice floe in a phone booth and fighting for each other’s championship. And as far as I’m concerned, that was not resolved tonight. And it will never be resolved.”
Golovkin and Alvarez likely won’t break bread after Saturday’s fight, if ever, and having a fight like “The Thrilla in Manila” is something only the most optimistic can look forward to. But maybe, just maybe, any question on either fighter’s mind will be answered, and then life, in and out of the ring, can go on for two fighters who must have plenty of them, even after 24 rounds together. .
